Girls on Fire

Girls on Fire by Robin Wasserman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I sped through this book and had a hard time putting it down. The events were kind like watching 48 hours or a crime scene, unsolved mystery, 60 minutes about teenagers all rolled into one. Robin Wasserman wove a tale of dark reality was that was to believe was non-fiction while I as immersed within the pages.

Hannah Dexter aka Dex, and Lacey both live on the fringes of the high school social scene. Did I say fringes... what I meant was that they don't fit in for vastly different reasons. Hannah, because she harbors a lot of feelings of injustice and just doesn't have the right look, and Lacey because she is the new girl in a small town, who brings big city Grunge attire and an extreme obsession with Kurt Cobain (the book is set in the early 90s). Lacey takes Hannah and gives her new confidence as she becomes Dex, the trusty sidekick. A hatred of the ultimate mean girl Nikki bonds them together in a girlhood crush on life and hating anything the "plebs" may deign to do or like.

I can honestly say that on the outside look in, that EVERY one of these characters is despicable in some way. Probably Lacey's mom the most for me, with the small glances we get into her selfish thoughts towards motherhood that made me want to beat the crap out of her. Nikki was a CLOSE CLOSE second, especially with the "sleepover" incident.

There is a lot of harsh realities of small town, overly religion, teenage life on these pages. A lot of topics that parents don't ever want to think about happening to their child or have their child out doing. Unfortunately, we can all hide under the blanket of suburbanite life or we can face the fact that things like this will happen to some kids. I wanted to smother my child and home-school him after reading this.

**Sensitive topics such as drug use, underage drinking, "satanic" rituals, rape, emotional abuse and death do occur in this book so be prepared.

With all of the horrors found within, this is also a book that feels so real it is scary. Such as the author either personally experienced these horrors from some point or was privy to someone who did. The book is written that fantastically that to give it anything less would be a travesty... 5 stars for me.

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Side Effects Movie Review

As an avid Jude Law lover I was definitely interested in a movie with him and Catherine Zeta Jones, not to mention Rooney Mara & Channing Tatum.  So needless to say I was really looking forward to this movie.  I can admit that I didn't really know what it was going to be about, but I can't think of a single Jude Law movie that I hate, so I wasn't really worried. 

I try to do my reviews with as little spoilers as possible, so I will try to keep with that in this review as this isn't as old as most of the movies I review and so the likelihood that someone reading it hasn't yet watched the film is much higher.  So here goes.

Side Effects definitely falls into the thriller/suspense genre.  It is a very intriguing movie which opens
with some blood which could be a possible murder or struggle scene and no body or anything else to let you know what happened and then jumps back to 3 months earlier in the life of the movie.  It is directed by Steven Soderbergh and I must say that he did quite an amazing job.  I also feel like it was cast very well.

Jude Law is actually looking a little bit older in this movie.  I think this is the first movie I have seen with him where you really didn't feel that he had a connection with any woman in the film, although after having seen the whole thing, that may have been an intentional feeling to go across..

 The main theme of the movie is that the main character Emily (played by Rooney Mara) has serious depression issues and goes through a series of drugs to try to find some sort of semblance of a normal life without thinking of suicide.  She ends up with one that seems to have horrendous side effects for her.  Jude Law plays her therapist.  Throughout the movie it definitely has you thinking about all of the crazy side effects of drugs and how they have to happen to at least some people and how awful it would be if you were one of those people.

I have to say that it had some very excellent twists and turns within the story.  Initially I was thinking it was going to be a movie that was along the lines of Limitless with Bradley Cooper, but it was something entirely different.  Very great and I highly recommend it.  I don't want to give any of it away, but let's just say that there is no way you can guess all of what will happen!  I loved it!    Check it out and let me know what you thought as well!

Here is the official movie website Side Effects May Vary

Here is the excellent trailer for the movie :)